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Security

Experts Warn About Security Flaws In Airline Boarding Passes 199

Posted by samzenpus from the to-screen-or-not-to-screen dept.
concealment writes in with a story about a newly found security issue with the bar codes on boarding passes. "Flight enthusiasts, however, recently discovered that the bar codes printed on all boarding passes — which travelers can obtain up to 24 hours before arriving at the airport — contain information on which security screening a passenger is set to receive. Details about the vulnerability spread after John Butler, an aviation blogger, drew attention to it in a post late last week. Butler said he had discovered that information stored within the bar codes of boarding passes is unencrypted, and so can be read in advance by technically minded travelers. Simply by using a smartphone or similar device to check the bar code, travelers could determine whether they would pass through full security screening, or the expedited process."

Comment And thus "Linux on the desktop" keeps failing. (Score 0) 946

by GeekDork (#41627983) Attached to: Alan Cox to NVIDIA: You Can't Use DMA-BUF

It's bullshit like that which makes the Linux biotope unsuitable for the desktop and other fields, and shows why the GPL is destructive, not useful for anything interesting, and generally not a well thought-of concept.

It shows why extremism is destructive in any field.

You may all bitch and moan about "proprietary closed shit", but at the end of the day, that very shit provides viable and accessible interfaces for people to do interesting stuff with.
Linux

Torvalds Uses Profanity To Lambaste Romney Remarks 1223

Posted by samzenpus from the can't-we-all-just-get-along? dept.
netbuzz writes "Last night Linux creator Linus Torvalds took to his Google+ page and called Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney 'a f***ing moron.' Torvalds' stated reason? Romney's much-ridiculed suggestion that air passengers would be safer in emergencies if aircraft windows could be opened (a suggestion which some, including Snopes.com, have taken as a joke). Torvalds also recently called Mormonism, Romney's religion, 'bats**t crazy.' Is this just Linus being Linus? Or does such outspokenness on non-technical matters reflect poorly on the Linux community that Torvalds leads?"
Space

Vaporizing the Earth In the Name of Science 100

Posted by Soulskill from the what-better-reason dept.
cylonlover writes "Unlike in old B movies, real scientists don't scream, 'Fools! I'll destroy them all!' before throwing the switch on their doomsday device. At least, most of the them don't. However, the August 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal reports that a team of scientists are working on destroying the world – not once, but repeatedly (abstract). Fortunately, the world they're vaporizing exists only in a computer simulation and its destruction is in the service of learning more about planets revolving around other stars."
Google

Google Says Some Apple Inventions Are So Great They Should Be Shared 347

Posted by timothy from the gem-of-an-idea-in-there dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In attempting to fend off Apple's suit against Motorola Mobility and advancing its own patent litigation against Apple, Google, which is facing a lot of regulatory scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad over what some allege is abuse of standard essential patents, has been arguing that proprietary non-standardized technologies that become ubiquitous due to their popularity with consumers should be considered de facto standards."
Bitcoin

With Euro Zone Problems, Bitcoin Experiencing Boost In Legitimacy 430

Posted by Soulskill from the any-old-port-in-the-storm dept.
derekmead writes "Despite being used for drugs and beef jerky, Bitcoin is finding legitimate purposes. Bitcoin's decentralized convenience means international efficiency, in areas where local restrictions on money transfers to foreign companies make legal businesses cumbersome. 'I've been able to have cash in my bank account in a matter of hours using Bitcoin, rather than three days with traditional banking,' one British businessman in China told Reuters. In embattled Europe, Bitcoin offers some a viable alternative against central banks, said a Greek owner of an island bar and restaurant who accepts payment in Bitcoin. 'I don't put money in the banks. I trust the euro as a note, but I don't trust banks. I don't want them making money out of my earnings.' Indeed, Europe's financial woes are caused an unprecedented surge of interest in the alternative currency, as the continent loses economic credibility with each new bailout, according to a report by the Financial Post."
Politics

'Legitimized' Cyberwar Opens Pandora's Box of Dirty Tricks 134

Posted by timothy from the he-who-is-without-sin dept.
DillyTonto writes "U.S. officials have acknowledged playing a role in the development and deployment of Stuxnet, Duqu and other cyberweapons against Iran. The acknowledgement makes cyberattacks more legitimate as a tool of not-quite-lethal international diplomacy. It also legitimizes them as more-combative tools for political conflict over social issues, in the same way Tasers gave police less-than-lethal alternatives to shooting suspects and gave those who abuse their power something other than a club to hit a suspect with. Political parties and single-issue political organizations already use 'opposition research' to name-and-shame their opponents with real or exaggerated revelations from a checkered past, jerrymander districts to ensure their candidates a victory and vote-suppression or get-out-the-vote efforts to skew vote tallies. Imagine what they'll do with custom malware, the ability to DDOS an opponent's web site or redirect donations from an opponent's site to their own. Cyberweapons may give nations a way to attack enemies without killing anyone. They'll definitely give domestic political groups a whole new world of dirty tricks to play."
Biotech

EU Blocks France's Ban of Monsanto's GM Maize 285

Posted by Soulskill from the renamed-to-freedom-corn dept.
redletterdave writes with an update to news from a few months ago that France had banned the growing of Monsanto's genetically modified corn. After reviewing the evidence France submitted in support of the ban, the European Food Safety Authority has now rejected it. An official opinion (PDF) stated that they "could not identify any new science-based evidence indicating that maize MON 810 cultivation in the EU poses a significant and imminent risk to the human and animal health or the environment."
The Internet

Ultra-Orthodox Jews Rally For a More Kosher Internet 430

Posted by samzenpus from the hold-the-spam dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Michael Grynbaum writes that 40,000 ultra-Orthodox Jewish men filed through the gates of Citi Field to discuss the dangers of the Internet. For the attendees, many of whom said they came at the instructions of their rabbis, it was a chance to hear about a moral topic considered gravely important in the Hasidic community: the potential problems that can stem from access to pornography and other explicit content on the uncensored, often incendiary Web. Schlomo Cohen, 24, said he came to Citi Field because the rally was a good way to remind his community to keep temptation at bay. 'Desires are out there,' said Cohen. 'We have to learn how to control ourselves.' The rally was sponsored by a rabbinical group, Ichud Hakehillos Letohar Hamachane, that is linked to a software company that sells Internet filtering software to Orthodox Jews. Those in attendance were handed fliers that advertised services like a 'kosher GPS App' for iPhone and Android phones, which helps users locate synagogues and kosher restaurants. 'No one here is a Luddite who denies the manifold benefits that technology has brought to mankind as a whole,' says Eytan Kobre, spokesman for the event. 'But at a certain point, a mature, thinking individual stops and says, "I've got to make a cost-benefit analysis [of] what ways it is enriching my life, [and] in what ways it is undermining it."'"
Google

In Australia, Google Pays Just $74k Tax On Claimed Revenues of $200 Million 345

Posted by timothy from the avoidance-vs-evasion dept.
daria42 writes "Looks like Apple isn't the only company with interesting offshore taxation practices. The financial statements for Google's Australian subsidiary show the company told the Australian Government it made just $200 million in revenue in 2011 in Australia, despite local industry estimating it actually brought in closer to $1 billion. The rest was funnelled through Google's Irish subsidiary and not disclosed in Australia. Consequently the company only disclosed taxation costs in Australia of $74,000. Not bad work if you can get it — which Google apparently can."
Books

'Mein Kampf' To Be Republished In Germany 462

Posted by samzenpus from the formerly-banned-books dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "Jacob Heilbrunn reports in The Atlantic that Germany is taking a new step toward what is often called 'normalization' as the state of Bavaria has announced that in 2015 it will publish Hitler's Mein Kampf, banned in Germany since World War II. In announcing the publication of the book, Bavarian finance minister Markus Soeder says that he wants to contribute to the 'demystification' of it. In 2015, the Bavarian state's copyright to the book will expire and the idea is to publish a scholarly version that will help stem its appeal for commercial publishers. The book is not banned by law in Germany, but Bavaria has used ownership of the copyright to prevent publication of German editions since 1945. Copyright restrictions stop at the end of 2015, 70 years after Hitler's death. By publishing in 2015 before the expiry of the copyright, Bavaria hopes to make future German editions as 'commercially unattractive' as possible. 'We want to make clear what nonsense is in there,' says Soeder and to show 'what a worldwide catastrophe this dangerous body of thought led to.'"

Comment GPL means "no libraries" in modern languages (Score 1) 808

by GeekDork (#38415518) Attached to: GPL, Copyleft Use Declining Fast

The GPL traditionally can't deal with any language "above" assembly and maybe C. As soon as a language allows "modern" features like generics or even crazy stuff like open classes, it becomes impossible to draw a clear line between projects. This effectively means that GPLed code really becomes a fast-spreading plague.

Stuff like the Asshole GPL don't really help acceptance, creating infection vectors across service boundaries.

All in all, it was fun while it lasted. Some highly encapsulated projects like the Linux kernel may stick with an old, benign version of the license, but it doesn't have a future in today's environment.
GNU is Not Unix

GPL, Copyleft Use Declining Fast 808

Posted by timothy from the taking-great-liberties dept.
itwbennett writes "Use of the GPL, LGPL, and AGPL set of licenses is declining at an accelerating rate, according to new analysis by the 451 Group's Matthew Aslett. In fact, the 451 Group projects that GPL usage will hit 50% by September 2012. Instead, developers are licensing projects under permissive licenses such as the MIT, Apache (ASL), BSD, and Ms-PL. The shift started in 2007 and has been gathering momentum ever since. Blogger Brian Proffitt posits that 'the creation of the GPLv3 and the sometimes contentious discussion that led up to it' may be partly responsible for the move away from the GPL."

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